The Wildcard: Israel's Completely Unconventional 'Ally'

With dwindling Western support for Israel's war against Palestinian terror, the Jewish state could very well receive unbelievable aid from a country not known to be one of its official partners.

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If you’ve been living on a remote island for the last few weeks, there’s a war being fought between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, and the Iranian regime is very much behind it.

Before we get into the present-day particulars, here’s what you should know about the Iranian regime: In 1979, the Iranian revolution culminated in an overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty. The theocratic regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who headed one of the rebel factions, superseded the Pahlavi dynasty.

Since then, Khomeini has been relentlessly investing in the export of Iran’s Islamic revolution, with the aim of maximizing regional hegemony. As part of this masterplan, the Iranians identify other like-minded rebel groups across the Middle East and North Africa, and supply them with training, weaponry, and funds to carry out (or stand ready to carry out) “missions” that align with this masterplan.

This is what the term “Iranian proxies” means, and acting through proxies is a method of eluding responsibility, while surely a more efficient way to expand Iranian imperialism.

Experts say Iran hopes to further leverage its growing network of proxies to move equipment and personnel across the Middle East and North Africa — and remove Western powers that stand in its way. In recent years, Iran has sought to improve cooperation among these proxies, with the grand plan of forming a more united “Axis of Resistance” against mutual enemies.

Do you know who else has proxies across the Middle East and North Africa? A country called Saudi Arabia, the competing empire with which Iran has been engaged in an ongoing, highly lethal struggle for dominant influence in the Middle East and other areas of the Muslim world.

In what’s been described as a new cold war, the conflict is waged on multiple levels: geopolitical, economic, and sectarian to name a few. Iran believes it’s the leading Shia Muslim power, while Saudi Arabia sees itself as that of Sunni Muslims. To add insult to injury, there are also historical tensions between Arabs and Persians among the two countries.

Prior to the Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia fashioned itself as the leader of the Muslim world, basing its legitimacy in part on its control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. But in 1979, Saudi Arabia’s image as this de facto leader was undermined with the rise of Iran’s new theocratic government, which challenged the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia’s Al Saud dynasty and its authority as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Saudi King Khalid initially congratulated Iran and stated that “Islamic solidarity” could be the basis of closer relations between the two countries, but relations worsened substantially over the next decade. Since then, the two countries have been engaged in proxy wars across the Middle East, such as in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, and even amongst the Kurds.

Fast-forward to 2023, and U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing hard for Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization, following a series of agreements between other Arab states and Israel, known as the Abraham Accords.

Leaks to media outlets that outlined contours of the American-Saudi-Israeli talks added to the sense that this three-way pact was persevering for a breakthrough, which the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince asserted would be “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War.”

In the Iranian regime’s eyes, Saudi-Israeli normalization would be a monumental setback to their pursuit of regional hegemony, since Israel in many ways represents the West, and Saudi-Israeli normalization would therefore ensure the West is alive and kicking in the Middle East. Especially after the United States virtually withdrew from the region following two disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hence why many believe that the Israel-Hamas war is, in all likelihood, not just a war between Israel and Hamas, but a war waged by Hamas, with the backing of Iran, to upend Saudi-Israeli normalization and its consequences amid the Iranian pursuit of regional hegemony.

But then, on November 11th, the Saudis hosted an Arab-Islamic summit against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. Originally, only the 22 members of the Arab League were expected to participate, but the meeting was expanded to feature the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a wider association of 57 mostly Muslim-majority states that the Arab League countries belong to.

This included Iran, which was represented at the summit by its president, Ebrahim Raisi, marking the first visit to Saudi Arabia by an Iranian president in 11 years.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the summit was being held “in response to the exceptional circumstances taking place in the Palestinian Gaza Strip as countries feel the need to unify efforts and come out with a unified collective position.”

Yet when it came time to deliver a “unified collective position” at the summit’s end, there wasn’t much unity at all. The proposal, presumably put forth by Iran or at least heavily endorsed by it, was to sever all diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, deny Arab airspace to Israeli flights, and for oil-producing Muslim countries to “threaten to use oil as a means of leverage” — all in order to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

Reportedly, Saudi Arabia was among the countries that blocked this proposal.

In another report at the end of October, one of the missiles fired towards Israel by Houthi rebels in Yemen was intercepted by — you guessed it — Saudi Arabia.

Then there was this headline, “Saudi Arabia detains worshippers praying for Gaza in holy sites,” from just a few days ago, describing how the country is apprehending worshippers displaying solidarity for Gaza, praying for Palestine at holy sites in Mecca and Medina, and wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh (a traditional headdress).¹

In October, Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news channel, aired an awkward interview with Khaled Meshaal, the former head of Hamas. Rasha Nabil, the host, asked him repeatedly how Hamas could expect support from other Arab countries after it made a unilateral decision to go to war, pressed him to condemn the murder of Israeli civilians, and needled him on whether Iran’s help had “lived up to your expectations.”²

It was an interview that Hamas officials are almost never subjected to on Arabic-speaking channels. Meshaal was rattled, and clips of the interview were widely shared across social media and even on Israeli television.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is that Saudi Arabia has not ruled out normalization with Israel, even as it continues to play public theater by condemning Israeli actions during this war.

According to a briefing by The Economist at the end of October, Saudi Arabia wants to “weaken Hamas, forestall a wider confrontation with Iran, and somehow keep alive their vision of an autocratic but more peaceful and prosperous region. It is a delicate and dangerous balancing act.”³

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime seems to be slowly escalating the war through its proxies, and we can safely assume that Iran is playing a long game here.

After all, the longer the war endures, the better for Iran and its proxies because everyday Israelis don’t want to live in the background of a prolonged war; Western support for Israel will continue to evaporate; and the U.S. presidential election next November could, at least in some ways, make America a relatively insignificant ally of Israel between now and then.

After COVID, the unceasing Ukraine-Russia war, a recent downturn in the U.S. economy, and other socioeconomic issues plaguing their country, it appears a lot of the American public — and even much of President Joe Biden’s Democratic party — is growing tired of funding overseas ventures, like the wars in Ukraine and now Israel.

So much so that Biden’s reelection could very well hinge on his administration noticeably dialing back public and even private support for the Israelis in their stated goals of returning all 240 people kidnapped by Palestinians in Gaza, and eradicating Hamas from the strip.

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Editor’s Note: In light of the situation in Israel — where we are based — we are making Future of Jewish FREE for the coming days. If you wish to support our critical mission to responsibly defend the Jewish People and Israel during this unprecedented time in our history, you can do so via the following options:

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The Iranians are also indirectly garnering a ton of support from everyday people across the Western world, who have showed immeasurable solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza — many going as far as to justify the Palestinian attacks, and some even empathizing with Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” (which just went viral on social media if you haven’t heard).

Some 1,700 professors from Ivy League universities, Oxford, and other academic institutions recently penned an open letter trying to take a “humanistic stance” that ultimately legitimized the Palestinian massacre on October 7th, the kidnappings, and their crimes against humanity.

In another open letter, this one from The New York Review, a bunch of academics tried to pompously explain why Jews shouldn’t use our own collective memory of the Holocaust to help us process the atrocities of October 7th.⁴

A new swath of social media influencers — typically non-Arab, left-leaning Western women — are openly considering themselves “reverts” to Islam, based on the belief that all people are born on a natural path to Islam and therefore revert, rather than convert, to the religion.

Plus, antisemitism worldwide has jumped well over 300-percent since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, to go along with more than 10,000 antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents (including murder, assault, and harassment), as well as thousands more of such incidents that haven’t been reported.

All of these trends play into the Iranian regime’s hegemonic masterplan, which absolutely includes delegitimizing Israel, scaring Jews and others about being openly supportive of the Jewish state, inspiring a heavy dose of left-wing and right-wing antisemitism, and thus reinvigorating feelings of insecurity and uneasiness among Jews across the world.

That’s why, if you’re the Iranian regime right now, you’re sitting pretty — and you’ve only unleashed a tiny fraction of your proxies’ military might against Israel. At any moment’s notice, you can kindly ask your “baby” Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, to turn up the heat on the Jewish state. Compared to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Hezbollah terror group has an impressive arsenal that could easily devastate Israel.

There are also plenty of Iranian forces in Syria (to Israel’s eastern border) and the Houthis (another Iranian proxy) in Yemen, across the Red Sea from Eilat, Israel’s southern-most city.

Without tremendous support from the U.S. and other conventional allies, Israel could easily find itself trying to weather this storm alone. Yes, the Americans moved an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean at the start of this war, primarily to keep Hezbollah at bay, but moving an aircraft carrier and actually using it are two very different things.

Remember, Biden might not have enough public and political support to entangle America in another war as the U.S. presidential election heats up. In a situation where Biden is effectively forced to choose between appeasing the American public and his own political allies, or jeopardizing the Democrats’ reelection by helping the Israelis in combat, do you really expect him to choose the latter?

This is where a wildcard might come in, a totally unconventional and very much unofficial “ally.” Of course, I’m talking about Saudi Arabia.

If I told you just a few months ago that the Saudis would, quite possibly, not just side with but actively help Israel in one of its most challenging wars, you would’ve laughed your pants off.

According to the aforementioned briefing by The Economist, it’s true that “Saudi Arabia has tried to chart a middle course.” But the briefing also said that there are “signs that its stance has shifted.”

Why?

“The Saudis are nervous that a regional war could lead to Iranian-sponsored attacks on the kingdom,” the briefing added, “like the one in 2019 that briefly disabled half of its oil production.”

The Saudis know that Israel poses no implicit or explicit threat to it; Israel never has, which means it probably never will. Iran, on the other hand, is the Middle East’s big bad beast, thereby representing a swelling sectarian, geopolitical, economic, and security nuisance to the Saudis.

Whereas Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates are pursuing ambitious plans to diversify their economies, the Iranian regime wants to turn the region into a despotic caliphate, an Islamic form of government governed by a leader considered a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Hence why the Saudis, who up until recently had plenty of antisemitism and anti-Israel messaging institutionalized throughout their schools and mainstream media, might soon be in an unprecedented position: to help save the Jewish state, or to stand idly by as tremendous Iran-driven turmoil transcends upon the Middle East.

If I had to bet on it, I’d say Saudi Arabia makes a daring bet on the Jews, and such is how Israeli-Saudi normalization unbelievably begins.

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1. “Israel-Palestine war: Saudi Arabia detains worshippers praying for Gaza in holy sites.” Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-saudi-arabia-detains-worshippers-praying-gaza.

2. “Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE want to keep links with Israel.” The Economist. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/22/are-the-abraham-accords-over.

3. “Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE want to keep links with Israel.” The Economist. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/22/are-the-abraham-accords-over.

4. “An Open Letter on the Misuse of Holocaust Memory.” The New York Review. https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/11/20/an-open-letter-on-the-misuse-of-holocaust-memory.